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Setup Chromebooks For Testing And Learning

Just the other day I was talking with a district about SBAC (CAASPP) testing on Chromebooks. They were commenting that it was such a pain having to switch Chromebooks from single-app kiosk mode back to regular login mode so the kids could use them for learning. To which I paused and said, “You do know you can just push the app to the login screen and then the kids can use them for testing or learning whenever they want, right?”

With Chromebooks, SBAC testing and learning go together like peanut butter and chocolate

Using this configuration, we leave the AirTest app available all year round. That means we typically only have to worry about managing the OS version upgrades during testing. This is a great, low impact option for us because it means our Chromebooks aren’t bricks sitting in carts when testing isn’t taking place in the classroom during the testing window and we don’t have to move Chromebooks in and out of OUs to enable public sessions or kiosk modes to “prepare” for testing. We can spend our time making sure the Chromebooks are updated to the right OS version, hold a charge and don’t have broken parts so we’re good to go on the first day of testing.

If this sounds like the route you’d like to take, read up on Scenario 1 from this Google Support page. It’s pretty straight forward. When students power on the Chromebook, they will be prompted with the option to login to their GAFE account and get to work or they can open the app launcher (which needs some management features please, but that’s a topic for another post) and select the AirSecure Browser, which will magically launch as a Kiosk App, no login required.